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In first week of this month, I ventured on a FSAT (Family Satisfaction) trip to Bengaluru and Tirupati. The occasion was head shaving ceremony (aka Mundan ) of my 10 month old niece named Pihu. We thought it would be great to get Pihu’s Mundan performed at the Devasthanam (Place of God). It’s customary to tonsure and offer your hairs to Lord Venkateswara to demonstrate that we.jpg)
completely surrender our ego at the feet of the Lord. But Pihu had little choice left to think about this objective of tonsuring as her parents had already decided it for her. Further our appointment with Lord Srinivasa was co-inciding with my b’day and it was different feeling to spend it amidst sacred Sapthagiri (Seven Hills). So with lot of mixed feeling inside and b’day wishes pouring into my ears* through wireless channel outside; we started our uphill journey from Tirupati to temple at Tirumala.
(* Thank you Ravi for being the first caller of the day and your nice b’day wishes!)
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completely surrender our ego at the feet of the Lord. But Pihu had little choice left to think about this objective of tonsuring as her parents had already decided it for her. Further our appointment with Lord Srinivasa was co-inciding with my b’day and it was different feeling to spend it amidst sacred Sapthagiri (Seven Hills). So with lot of mixed feeling inside and b’day wishes pouring into my ears* through wireless channel outside; we started our uphill journey from Tirupati to temple at Tirumala.(* Thank you Ravi for being the first caller of the day and your nice b’day wishes!)
The place looked quite changed since I had visited here last time about 7 years back. I could sense commercialization of devotion everywhere starting from altercation with the cab driver who took us uphill. He demanded us more than what he had agreed upon at the foothills of the Lord. Finally after the payment, we moved to KalyanaKatta for the Mundan. It being Saturday, the queue for buying ticket to tonsure was long and by the time I reached at the head of the queue, it was lunch time. I thanked Lord for making me at the head of the queue when counter re-opened after the lunch time. Then it was testing time for Pihu as she sat on the lap of her father while her head being shaved by a very experienced barber. She cried furiously but nobody listened. We could feel her pain through her tears. It was difficult task to bring he
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r back in good mood after tonsuring. After lot of persuasion for about one hour she smiled as shown in the picture.Now it was time for us to get Darshan (face to face meeting) of the Lord. We did not bother to buy the Darshan ticket as Arul P. (from Nalanda team) had arranged a Member of Parliament (M. P.) letter for facilitating VIP cellar entry ticket for us. I was surprised to see the long queue of crowd even at VIP counter and started wondering whether so many family members of VIPs visit the Lord on every weekend or was it our sheer bad luck? The security person locked the door after some time and announced to everybody “अभी टोकन नहीं मिलेगा, चार बजे आना (Come at 16:00 hrs)”. It was just 13:30 and we had lot of time to kill. I called up Arul and he suggested that we should have reached earlier. I felt bad about killing my time in tonsuring token queue. Instead, I could have tried here in this queue and might have received the Darshan token. Anyways, we roamed around in Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) campus till 15:45 or so getting a glimpse of majestic temple complex and people waiting in Darshan queue chanting (rather shouting) Govinda. In anticipation of early Darshan, when we reached at VIP counter again at 16:00 hours the counter was still closed and lot of VIP crowd still waiting
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for it to re-open. Closer to the counter they had put one old rusted iron plate placard announcing, “No cellar entry tickets will be issued on VIP letters due to heavy rush of the pilgrims.”We read this with a sense of shock. So there was no hope for us to rendezvous with God using VIP letter. After some time, I could observe some persons getting VIP letters issued from the backdoor with the help of the touts roaming around. They had letter head of various MPs (as well as other TTD trust recognized VIPs) and they were issuing these letters on the spot for a fee. And the VIP counter was secretly issuing the tokens to these selected few. I felt pity for the people taking services from these touts. A pious activity like Lord’s Darshan should not be obtained using this kind of unethical means. I expressed my wish of not obtaining Darshan by using touts and returning back to Bangalore to everybody in my Team. Everybody agreed except my better half Jaya. She said let her explore more about getting a Darshan. She returned with some success and told there are three possibilities now:
1) Wait till 21:00 hrs when VIP counter will possibly re-open
2) At 18:00 hrs. there would be entry through the shortest possible queue for elderly, physically handicapped (PH) and babies lesser than two years accompanied by their mother
3) Pay the touts and get Darshan for everybody
First option was ruled out as we had train to catch at 23:30 hrs. The second option seemed quite interesting to us. Since Jaya and Pihu were the only debutants in my team at this temple, so they can enter in the queue as proxy mother-daughter pair. Rest of us had already been here before, so we agreed to wait outside as they would anyway come out in about 40 minutes. So we decided to forgo our Darshan and let these two go inside. As they started waiting in that queue, I felt something was not correct. What has happened to our ethics? We were using a big lie for Darshan but probably observing the deity was more important than the means used to achieve it at that moment. The other thing which went wrong simultaneously was that the youngest one started crying. As soon as Jaya handed over her to me she started feeling better. Perhaps she liked her maternal uncle more than her newly found proxy mother. So we three now started waiting in that queue full of senior citizens, PH persons and babies with their mothers. I was prepared to leave Pihu with Jaya as soon as we would reach near the entrance. But HE had something in store for us.
While we were waiting a PH person approached us and asked me whether I am also interested in accompanying the baby and her mother. A foul smell of local liquor was coming out of his mouth and upon a closer inspection it looked like he was handicapped just for this “profession”. His right leg was butchered badly and he must be in acute pain. May be alcohol was the only pain-killer he could afford while on the “job”. I wanted to plainly refuse but Jaya signaled me to listen to his offer at least. He said since he is allowed to take one attendant with himself into the temple he could take me (of course for a fee). And thus I would be getting Darshan of the Lord with my “family” and he would take his money only after coming out of the temple. The offer sounded interesting since both Pihu and Jaya needed my presence with them inside the temple. So we agreed to his offer. He told me, when TTD officials ask us before entering the temple, tell them that he was Ram from Mumbai and he got his leg butchered in a road accident. Since he was not in a position to walk on his own, we both had travelled from Mumbai this far. I understood whatever lie he had asked me to tell to TTD person issuing tokens. Thus I became his attendant and we stood like famous “blind and amputee” pair of old B/W movie Dosti (1964). I felt like singing, “Raahi manwa dukh ki chinta kyon sataati hai…”
I did just what he had asked me to do. I told his name as Ram for getting an entry ticket for both of us for Darshan. As soon as we gained entry into the temple he did not require my help as attendant. He started to walk normally albeit with a limp. He seemed very popular figure inside the temple as he was treated equally with smiles as well as hatred (may be because of alcohol smell). I joined Jaya and Pihu with a surety that he would find us out for his money. With the little one piggybacking on me we three crawled through the crowd of devotees chanting Govinda. We could finally manage to get Darshan using NOT so appropriate means. It was shortest possible queuing time for me in my three trips to Tirupati Balaji so far. As we were coming out “Ram” came to me and asked me to come with him for the Tirupati laddu prasadam. We purchased a plastic cover and two laddus at very subsidized rate on Ram’s ticket, that too again in the shortest queue. He told me that he manages to sell these laddus as Rs 250/- per piece and we need to add this amount to his final fees. And we actually verified his claim later. If one wants more laddus than what is prescribed on the entry token you need to pay similar amount for purchasing in black. We all were happy that every one in my team has obtained Darshan of the Lord at least once including Pihu. May be she was happiest to get Darshan at such a young age. So with happy mind and a very heavy heart we paid the service fee to Ram and said Twama di vastu Govindam, tubhayamav samarpyami (what is mine is the Lord's)…Ram bid a formal bye to us but not before taking my mobile number. May be he was in the process of compiling his list of clients so that he can circulate his number as soon as he get one. J
1) Wait till 21:00 hrs when VIP counter will possibly re-open
2) At 18:00 hrs. there would be entry through the shortest possible queue for elderly, physically handicapped (PH) and babies lesser than two years accompanied by their mother
3) Pay the touts and get Darshan for everybody
First option was ruled out as we had train to catch at 23:30 hrs. The second option seemed quite interesting to us. Since Jaya and Pihu were the only debutants in my team at this temple, so they can enter in the queue as proxy mother-daughter pair. Rest of us had already been here before, so we agreed to wait outside as they would anyway come out in about 40 minutes. So we decided to forgo our Darshan and let these two go inside. As they started waiting in that queue, I felt something was not correct. What has happened to our ethics? We were using a big lie for Darshan but probably observing the deity was more important than the means used to achieve it at that moment. The other thing which went wrong simultaneously was that the youngest one started crying. As soon as Jaya handed over her to me she started feeling better. Perhaps she liked her maternal uncle more than her newly found proxy mother. So we three now started waiting in that queue full of senior citizens, PH persons and babies with their mothers. I was prepared to leave Pihu with Jaya as soon as we would reach near the entrance. But HE had something in store for us.
While we were waiting a PH person approached us and asked me whether I am also interested in accompanying the baby and her mother. A foul smell of local liquor was coming out of his mouth and upon a closer inspection it looked like he was handicapped just for this “profession”. His right leg was butchered badly and he must be in acute pain. May be alcohol was the only pain-killer he could afford while on the “job”. I wanted to plainly refuse but Jaya signaled me to listen to his offer at least. He said since he is allowed to take one attendant with himself into the temple he could take me (of course for a fee). And thus I would be getting Darshan of the Lord with my “family” and he would take his money only after coming out of the temple. The offer sounded interesting since both Pihu and Jaya needed my presence with them inside the temple. So we agreed to his offer. He told me, when TTD officials ask us before entering the temple, tell them that he was Ram from Mumbai and he got his leg butchered in a road accident. Since he was not in a position to walk on his own, we both had travelled from Mumbai this far. I understood whatever lie he had asked me to tell to TTD person issuing tokens. Thus I became his attendant and we stood like famous “blind and amputee” pair of old B/W movie Dosti (1964). I felt like singing, “Raahi manwa dukh ki chinta kyon sataati hai…”
I did just what he had asked me to do. I told his name as Ram for getting an entry ticket for both of us for Darshan. As soon as we gained entry into the temple he did not require my help as attendant. He started to walk normally albeit with a limp. He seemed very popular figure inside the temple as he was treated equally with smiles as well as hatred (may be because of alcohol smell). I joined Jaya and Pihu with a surety that he would find us out for his money. With the little one piggybacking on me we three crawled through the crowd of devotees chanting Govinda. We could finally manage to get Darshan using NOT so appropriate means. It was shortest possible queuing time for me in my three trips to Tirupati Balaji so far. As we were coming out “Ram” came to me and asked me to come with him for the Tirupati laddu prasadam. We purchased a plastic cover and two laddus at very subsidized rate on Ram’s ticket, that too again in the shortest queue. He told me that he manages to sell these laddus as Rs 250/- per piece and we need to add this amount to his final fees. And we actually verified his claim later. If one wants more laddus than what is prescribed on the entry token you need to pay similar amount for purchasing in black. We all were happy that every one in my team has obtained Darshan of the Lord at least once including Pihu. May be she was happiest to get Darshan at such a young age. So with happy mind and a very heavy heart we paid the service fee to Ram and said Twama di vastu Govindam, tubhayamav samarpyami (what is mine is the Lord's)…Ram bid a formal bye to us but not before taking my mobile number. May be he was in the process of compiling his list of clients so that he can circulate his number as soon as he get one. J
We started for Bangaluru and "Ram" for his next client. This was Pihu’s Mundan and my birthday spent so nicely in Lord’s company witnessing commercialization of devotion at the richest temple in India.
